Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2000 12:54:38 +0200
From: Ilan Shalif <gshalif-AT-netvision.net.il>
Subject: Re: AUT: On Means of (re)Production, Class, Students


Hi people.
It is amazing how people who are against the capitalist
system still nurish the capitalist brain wash about classes.

The result is the confusing between the various strata
within each of the two modern classes - the exploited
workslaves and the exploiting masters, and calling each
of them "class". The qualitative differences of
exploiting and being exploited is not to be confound by
quantitative differences - among the exploiters who exploit
more or less, and among the exploited who is exploited more
and who less.

bob brown wrote:

>     folks, i think you're all  a little offbase in this discussion because
> you've muddied marx's original revolutionary conception of the proletariat,

His most revolutionary thing was the revealing of the
mysteries of exploitation.

>    capitalist production, reproduction, division of labor, and culture have

> gotten a lot more complex since Marx i.e. changes wrought by imperialism,
> the technological rev, the info rev, have led to globalization, the gradual
> formation of  a new international economy, world classes;

The more it changes - the more it is clearly the same:
system based around profits derived from exploitation.

> an internationally
> connected petty bourgeoisie (made possible partly by the internet!) an
> emerging world proletariat(heavily 3rd world women) and transnational
> capital. Marx's analysis of the petty bourgeoisie while still useful in its
> main lines no longer describes the modern middle class of the Metroplis,
> which far from disappearing or being proletarianized has grown along with
> bourgeoisified working class strata as a consequence imperialism's
> plundering of the 3rd world.

Usually just names of various strata of working people -
exploited one way or another.

>      the pivotal role of the middle class in 20th century politics, in
> bringing fascism to power,creating liberal reform capitalism, in helping
> capital create and run its  modern consumer culture, (see Gramsci's
> discussion of middle class intellectuals as the functionaries running
> capitalist culture and politics), even in shaping ( and misshaping)
> revolutionary politics ;

So we know that the capitalist hire working people for the
physical police and the mental police - teachers etc.

> that is, in blocking and defeating proletarian
> revolution ; these are all problems revolutionaries and proletarians will
> have  to confront in the 21st century.

It is never a simple project to measure or assess
how much have people of the capitalist ideology
police man in their head.

> i would like to see lists like this initiate more concrete  study and
> discussions of changes in all classes  since Marx's time, with an
> international focus , rather than just the euro and n.american working
> classes  on which you seem to be basing your discussions most of the time.

The exact "class analyzis" among the working people
will not profit the revolution. The efforts to refute the
confounding between strata and class will help much more.

> lets do like marx and start from real, living people and classes and the
> material conditions of their lives rather than marxist abstractions.
> (please no threads on what "marx really said" )

It is very small science to continue looking for the superficial
materialist conditions without trying to understand the
dynamics of the super structure and people minds.





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